Dialogue on Nothing

Parmenidean: If it is true that there is nothing, as you claim, then this still proves that there is something, namely that very truth and a mind capable of knowing it. Nihilism is self-refuting.

Nihilist: Oh, but the nihilist does not deny that there is something, but merely that the something has meaning.

Parmenidean: But a something without a meaning is an existing nothingness, which is to say a nothing which is. Hence, nihilism is indeed claiming that there is nothing, which, as I said, proves there is something.

Nihilist: The nothing has meaning, but only that meaning with which it is instilled by each individual, each interpreter.

Parmenidean: Then as the necessary instiller of those meanings which prevent the nothing from being absolutely meaningless, the interpreter himself exists absolutely, and hence there is something.

Nihilist: Unless the interpreter himself is also a mere interpretation.

Parmenidean: In which case there is no interpretation of the nothing after all, and hence the nothing simply is, which again proves there is something — this truth and its knower.